Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my colleague, Deputy Ivana Bacik, into Dáil Éireann and congratulate her on her achievement. We are very proud of her in the Labour Party. She is an incredible legislator and I thank the Taoiseach and the leader of Sinn Féin for their kind words. I assure the Taoiseach that Deputy Bacik is someone who will hold him and his Government to account over the coming days, weeks and years. He will find that out relatively quickly.

I want to ask about an issue that has come to the fore because an tUachtarán, Michael D. Higgins, raised it, that is, the significant scourge of gambling. It was also raised on "Prime Time" in an excellent report from Conor McMorrow. Oisín McConville, Cathal McCarron and other GAA stars have also highlighted issues they have and have been very open about their concerns and what happened to them. I watched the excellent European soccer championship over the last month or so, as did many others. I sat down to watch it with my daughter Aoibhe, who is a sports fanatic. The volume of gambling advertisements was, frankly, incredible.

I commend the Taoiseach on bringing in the smoking ban. Watching that on "Reeling in the Years", it is clear that it was very positive legislation. When people watch "Reeling in the Years" from 2021 or 2020 they will wonder why we allowed such advertisements on television, radio, in print and online. We need to deal with the issue. The President is right. Twice in the last two weeks, he has raised this issue and said it was a scourge. The Government has talked about bringing in a gambling regulator and we support it on that but it needs to implement Senator Mark Wall's Bill to ban gambling advertising.

The advertising out there is incredible. It never stops. It brings people who have problems with addiction back in. Some €1.36 billion was lost to gamblers last year. That is €300 per person but we all know that a large amount of money is lost by a small number of people. If we do not deal with this issue, many people will continue to have significant problems when it comes to an addiction to gambling, such as mental health issues and even - dare I say it - suicide because of it. The impacts it has on families are often hidden until it is too late.

As I said, the Taoiseach brought in excellent forward-thinking legislation many years ago to ban smoking indoors. The Government is bringing in a regulator for gambling but that is taking too long. In the interim, I ask the Taoiseach please to support us and support what the President of Ireland is asking us to do by banning gambling advertisements, particularly for young people, across all social, print and broadcast media.

We could do this relatively quickly. Other countries have done it. We are behind on this issue. I ask the Taoiseach to please do so.

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